Our friends at VICE had a novel idea. Let's wrangle two awesome musicians, sit them down, and have them talk like real human beings. They're calling it Back & Forth, a fitting title for the riffing of two inspirational musicians. First up? Annie Clark of St. Vincent and Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs. Two musicians with relatively sunny melodic dispositions, Clark and Garbus talk about their punk-rock influences and how to infuse their poppy performances with that kick-ass, take-names, punk-rock attitude. Their solution is to include intentional ugliness into their music. Clark says, "Ugliness is confrontational," and it seems in music, as in art or life, traditionally 'ugly' can be pretty nice.

The duo comes off as two genuinely cool girls (with really cool sunglasses) in the video, posted below. They bond over suburban roots, meeting your idols, grappling with the idea that they just might be someone's idols themselves, and the joy of making music. Mocking the idea that female musicians should still be regarded as groundbreaking in 2012, Annie Clark's response to the question 'What's it like to be a woman in music?' is: "It's fuckin' awesome."